Joanita Kawalya Opens Up On The Challenges of Raising a Child with a Physical Disability!

Joanita Kawalya opened up, for the first time, about her daughter, who developed a physical disability as a baby. The legendary singer, who has been with Afrigo Band for many years, was a guest on Dance With Valentino, a thrilling dance TV show yesterday. 

“Every time I think of it, it overwhelms me. It hurts and yet makes me happy,” she says about the birth of her daughter Matilda. Just like every expectant mother, Kawalya was beaming with joy as she planned to welcome her only daughter, until things began to not go right. 

“My blood pressure was so high. Doctors recommended that I deliver by ceasarean,” she tells Valentino Kabenge Richard, the host of the show. “After the operation, my daughter turned out to be bigger than normal. That wasn’t all, she couldn’t breathe and was put on oxygen immediately,” she continues.

Each time she attempted to breastfeed her baby, she turned blue-black because she couldn’t breathe. The singer was then instructed to pump milk from her breasts in order to feed her, an experience that was very painful for her to go through. The other challenge that they were in separate wards. ” I was sleeping up in ward 6. I had to pump the breasts, take the milk down to the special ward where she was,  for it to be pumped into her through a naso-gastric tube. And I was Caesarean as well, so you can imagine the struggle,” she recounts. 

This experience had a physical and emotional toll on her. “I became dark and my eyes were popping out. My heart was crying out for my baby to stay alive. Since babies in that ward were dying every other time, and after, their bodies would get wrapped like a rolex. It was such a traumatic experience, ” she says. But the effects it had on her newborn baby were even worse. 

Upon getting discharged, doctors told her that her child had special needs and needed to be taken to the Mulago Special Care Unit. This became evident when she was four months old, when she realized that Matilda could not grasp with her right hand. Shortly after, she realized that even her right leg had the same challenge. 

Learning that her newborn child had special needs wasn’t easy to process for the singer, who was then juggling music with motherhood. “I knew what a child with special needs goes through. And, she was a girl! A girl with special needs has a hard time going through this world,” she recounts. 

Fortunately for her, Matilda received all the support she needed; from doctors to hers and her father’s. “I’d return from work late, some times at 4am, but every night, I’d find Mr Muganga, my husband, holding her waiting so that I could breastfeed her.”

“You need to love such a child, take special care of them, encourage them and another thing I have realised is that the more you help them, the more they improve and it boosts their self-esteem,” she advises. 

Indeed, Matilda has worked so hard through the years to overcome much of her disability and as we saw, is creating a singing career for herself and has a deep and joyful relationship with her mother.

And others who are differently abled have been invited into the ‘Dance With Valentino’ show demonstrating their love of music and dance and that all can benefit from movement and dance – many think of music and dance as food for the soul and that is why we are promoting dance being for everyone – it lifts the spirits whoever you are and can bring healing to the heart.